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AMD is still gaining back mindshare. Yes, they’re not optimizing for profit right now, because they’re also gaining something valuable - entrenched market posit
by aoeusnth1 7y ago
AMD is still gaining back mindshare. Yes, they’re not optimizing for profit right now, because they’re also gaining something valuable - entrenched market position. Intel’s dominance is incredibly sticky, and their name brand alone is worth 10s of billions. By blowing away Intel at every price point by a wide margin (and with Threadripper halo SKUs with no Intel competition), AMD is flexing and showing they are winners, and Intel are losers. People want to feel like winners when they buy products.
- Iv 7y agoThe last Intel security bugs made them lose a lot of the reputation they had, at least amongst system adminstrators though. Now is a crucial time for AMD to strike back.
- mcv 7y agoThis and their Minix backdoor are the reasons why I wanted an AMD for my laptop, but I was sad I couldn't find a high-end Thinkpad with AMD processor. I hope that will change next year.
- snvzz 7y agoWhy call it minix backdoor? It puts some blame on minix, yet minix is blameless here. Minix is an excellent FOSS microkernel multiserver OS with a focus on reliability and fault tolerance. The way Intel is using it just isn't nice.
- mcv 7y agoI'm not blaming it on Minix, but it does make use of Minix. I'm mentioning it to identify what I'm talking about. I believe the official name is Intel Management Engine. Or maybe that's just part of it.
- snvzz 7y agoIntel ME is the name I usually see, and also the name that the tools to remove/disable when possible do reference.
- soulnothing 7y agoT495 Zen+ A485 Zen X395 Zen+ The 5 at the end denotes an AMD product. I'd hold out for after CES though. That's when Zen2 is coming to laptops. With thinkpad lag I'd say August of next year.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y agoIf you're talking about the Management Engine, doesn't AMD have basically the same thing just called PSP?
- mcv 7y agoPossibly. The Intel version is better publicised. I have no idea what PSP can do, but Intel's IME makes it possible to remotely completely override anything about a PC, which can be convenient for sysadmins for large organisations, but hasn't been disabled for consumer products. I have no idea whether the same is true for PSP.
- lima 7y agoThe remote management features in Intel ME require a vPro capable chipset.
- labawi 7y agoTo be useful to you, usually yes. To be a convenient security hole, AFAIK no. Any quotes on ME being safe on non-vPro?
- lima 7y agoIt's still a security risk – code is running in the ME that can be exploited locally. Without vPro or with remote management and the network stack turned off there's a much smaller (probably close to zero) remote attack surface. With a vPro-capable chipset that has remote management enabled, the ME has its own IP address, plenty of potentially unsafe services, an insecure-by-default provisioning mechanism and much more.
- solarkraft 7y agoThe extensive research on the ME I actually conside a pro for Intel, since I know more about what it does and how to disable it. The PSP is still more of a black box.
- 7y ago
- xodice 7y agoAMD has the same "Secure Enclave". AMD PSP; "AMD Platform Security Processor". :(
- Tsarbomb 7y agoNot with the Directors of those system administrators though. Nobody got fired for buying Intel is a thing. I had to fight to get our recent server purchases to be AMD.
- Newtonip 7y agoWhat were the arguments you were getting against buying AMD?
- varren 7y agoheh after your words i'm thinking that AMD is doing to Intel what Nvidia did in GPU segment